Intel unveils its full range of desktop and laptop Kaby Lake CPUs

Today marks the debut of Intel's full range of Kaby Lake CPUs for laptops and desktops. Although the star of the show is the Core i7-7700K that we just reviewed, Intel and its partners will also be showcasing 15W and 28W mobile chips with Iris Plus graphics, new mobile Xeons, higher-TDP laptop CPUs, and Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 desktop CPUs this week at CES.

As we've come to expect from Intel CPU launches, the company has dozens of parts ready to go for next-gen systems, so we'll be covering them in broad categories and noting the highlights. We've included Intel's full data sheets for those who want to see which knobs and switches the company has turned in each part to reach a given price point.

Let's start with the 15W Kaby Lake parts with Iris Plus graphics. Compared to the Skylake U-series processors with Iris graphics before them, these chips all sport minor base and substantial Turbo clock speed boosts. The Iris Plus 640 and Iris Plus 650 branding for these chips' IGPs means that they're all paired with 64MB of eDRAM. All Iris Plus IGPs will have 48 Gen9 execution units.

The same story basically holds for the 28W seventh-gen CPUs with Iris Plus on board. All of these chips have tantalizing clock speed boosts compared to their Skylake brethren, and in thermally-constrained laptops, those boosts could make a substantial difference in performance.

Intel's duo of mobile Kaby Xeons marks our first foray into the 45W TDP range. Like the rest of the Kaby Lake lineup, these chips enjoy substantial clock speed boosts and Kaby's better handling of 4K video encoding with the HEVC and VP9 codecs. The HD Graphics P630 IGP in these parts should come with vendor certifications for professional graphics apps, and they should also boast ECC RAM support.

Consumer-oriented 45W Kaby Lake mobile parts will carry the H, HQ, and HK suffixes. These parts should offer a nice performance boost for gaming laptops, and the Core i7-7820HK will even have unlocked multipliers for overclocking on the go.

Although mobile performance boosts are nice, we imagine most TR readers are most curious to see what Kaby Lake desktop parts will be on offer. In addition to the Core i7-7700K, Intel is releasing two more unlocked Kaby Lake chips: the Core i5-7600K and the Core i3-7350K. While the Core i5-7600K is basically a boosted i5-6600K, the Core i3-7350K marks Intel's first unlocked two-core, four-thread part. That chip's $168-per-1000 pricing puts it in contention with lower-end Core i5s. The Core i7-7700K and Core i5-7600K should be available immediately, while the i3-7350K will be available late this month or in early February.

Clock boosts across the board are nothing to complain about with the full seventh-gen Core lineup, and we expect those boosts will be especially welcome in Intel's mobile chips and lower-end desktop parts. Stay tuned as we explore the implications of Intel's full Kaby lineup for system builders.